A National Collection of Mental Health Information


The Ministry of Health's Mental health Information Strategy (2005) identified the need for good quality information to support the future development of mental health services. Mental health service activity and consumer outcomes information at a national level is needed to determine whether the investment in the mental health system is making a difference.

Key impacts for NGOs from the strategy and its associated implementation document are summarised more...

Many of the people supported by NGOs do not have any service activity reported to the existing national collection. Platform's NGOIT 2005 Landscape Survey indicated that many NGOs are currently collecting data of one sort or another but that very little of this information is being communicated to external agencies. This means that the work of NGOs does not feature in national reporting.  It is hoped that the current NGO focussed projects, such as those noted below, will begin to address this significant gap.

National Mental Health and Addiction Key Performance Indicators (KPI) Project
The Ministry of Health funded this project to develop a national set of key performance indicators intended to provide a mechanism for mental health and addiction services to improve the quality of service delivery, to benchmark against other services and to target performance improvement efforts. The test phase of this project concluded in June 2010 and the third phase of the project commenced in August 2010 and involved all DHBs and their NGO partners in benchmarking activity. For current reports click on this link.

Programme for the Integration of Mental Health Data (PRIMHD)
Mental health service activity and consumer outcomes information at a national level is needed to support funding and planning decisions, inform policy development and to determine whether or not the investment in the mental health system is making a dfference. This project is supported by Platform and Regional Coordinators (see link to details about this work here PRIMHD).

Reference to Information Requirements-Developments in other Ministry of Health documents:

Te Tahuhu (The Mental Health and Addiction Action Plan 2006-2015) aims to assist government and NGO service providers to work more closely together, to jointly develop solutions to problems and work towards improving outcomes for people with mental health and addiction problems.

Te Kokiri (The Implementation plan of Te Tahuhu) the Leading Challenge of Transparency and Trust identifies:

  • Increasing the availability of information and information systems to underpin service development, which support decision-making and improve services for people
  • Creating an environment that enables DHBs to demonstrate that their investment in mental health and/or addiction deliver value for money, are result focused and have regard to service impacts on people who are severely affected by mental illness and addiction.
  • Creating an environment where mental health workers and service users can readily use information to support and enhance recovery.

Let's get real: Real Skills for people working in mental health and addiction:

Professional and personal development - every person working in a mental health and addiction treatment service actively reflects on their work and practice and works in ways that enhance the team to support the recovery of service users (Let's Get Real, 2008 p19).

  • Understands the nature and benefits of research and evaluation
  • Gathers and uses information to inform decisions relevant to their role

Measure Service Activity and consumer Outcomes

Consumer Outcomes